Posted on 03/20/2018 5:37:19 PM PDT by Texas Fossil
“My son was killed on 5th of May 2017 in a clash with the Turkish army. I learned of his death from the news. On a social media site called “kanlıkule”, the photos of my son’s disintegrated body were shared. In the photos, a special operation’s soldier stood with his foot on top of my son’s body. My wife and I
went to Hakkari to meet with the army commander to request my son’s body 20 days later. The commander said
that they threw his body into the river. I said ‘commander, I want my son’s body. If you can’t go to the
area, I can go and retrieve his body and the bodies of others.’ He said “Dogs and cats are eating the bodies of those killed last week’. I said ‘commander, there have been wars throughout history. After battles, even the worst enemies allow the others to collect their dead. What you are doing now goes against all laws and humanity. I beg you commander don’t torture us, give us our son’s body. Give us a grave, a stone that we can visit and cry at.”
These are the words of a father whose son, a member of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), was killed in the Çukurca district of Hakkari province, close to the borders of Iran and Iraq. I met him three months ago at the Human Rights Association in Diyarbakır. He is not alone.
More than 50 families have applied to the Human Rights Association. They all have loved ones whose bodies remain unburied. Raci Bilici, head of the Human Rights Association in Diyarbakır said, “the numbers are much higher, but unfortunately many families are afraid to apply to us and it is impossible for us to go to those rural areas and search for the bodies.”
After our meeting, I wrote a letter to the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım. I included all of the details of the family, pictures of the disintegrated body, the names of the social media accounts that shared these kinds of pictures (these accounts were taken down after I sent my letter). I demanded help for this family and others. I also gave the name of the commander in my letter and gave information about the other families whose loved ones’ bodies were unburied and eaten by animals. I asked them to stop these inhumane and barbaric actions. I also sent my letter and other documents to their advisors. No one responded. No one!
This is not the only case. Last August, Aycan İrmez, a member of parliament for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), asked parliament about the body of a woman PKK member that was left near the village of Güneyçam in Şırnak province. Soldiers and village guards militia would not allow villagers to bury the body. It was left on the ground and eaten by animals. The villagers wanted to bury the body so their children would not see it while walking to school every day.
The dead bodies of PKK members brought to hospitals are another problem. There are just a few imams in the region who can wash and perform the religious ceremonies for these bodies. I have interviewed these imams and written about the situation a number of times. One imam told me that at the beginning he was sick when he saw these bodies. No head, the eyes were removed, ears and genitals cut off and there was evidence of torture. “But then” he said, “I understood what humans are capable of doing to each other.”
Not only the dead bodies, but the bodies of those put to rest in PKK cemeteries have been affected by this brutality. In the last two years, PKK cemeteries have been bombed or destroyed. Sometimes Turkish authorities open the graves of the PKK members and remove the corpses. Just three months ago, 267 corpses were exhumed and removed from the Garzan Cemetery in Bitlis. The families applied to the Human Rights Association and the Human Rights Association prepared a detailed report about the Garzan cemetery.
Lezgin Bingöl, a father of one of the PKK member whose corpse was exhumed, told Kurdish news agency ANF:
“I went to the cemetery on December 20. There I saw that my daughter’s grave was not there. The grave had been demolished and my daughter’s bones had been exhumed and taken away. There is nothing left of the graves in the cemetery. When I looked around, I saw that all the other graves were in the same situation. I appealed to the Bitlis Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on December 21, 2017. I wanted to learn about the aftermath of my daughter’s corpse and filed a criminal complaint against those responsible. We had already buried my daughter after receiving a burial and transfer permit from the Forensic Medicine Institute. An investigation was launched against me and my wife in connection with the burial afterwards.”
These practices are against both Turkish and international laws. According to Turkish law, cemeteries cannot be destroyed or defiled. According to Article 5237 (Chapter 8) of the Turkish Criminal Code, to exhume corpses is punishable by between three months and two years in prison; to damage the graveyards is punishable by between one and four years prison.
These practices are also against the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Human Rights Convention (Article 3), and the Geneva Conventions, which have all been signed by Turkey. One of the main pillars of humanitarian law is the Geneva Conventions, Article 3 (the common article in four conventions) defines the boundaries of conflicting parties in armed conflicts and strictly prohibits mutilation, cruel treatment, torture and murder of all kinds.
In the 21st century, we are still talking about the right to a dignified burial. A right that is shared in all beliefs and religions. A right that is protected by all constitutions and laws. A right that is about being humane, being part of humanity. Today in Turkey, we are struggling for this right. While writing, my heart breaks deeply thinking of the dead bodies in our rural areas that are being eaten by animals.
Turkey is not only fighting against its “living” Kurds, but also with those who have died!
While fighting deceased Kurds, how can Turkey make peace with its living Kurds?
Not to be pedantic, but the Armenian genocide was, to a large extent, committed by Kurds under Ottoman direction.
PAR -- you said "There are just a few imams in the region who can wash and perform the religious ceremonies for these bodies." doesn't meet your definition of secular -- I don't think that's fair. A secular state doesn't favor any one religion over the othe. The USA allows priests etc to perform burials to military personnel. That's perfectly secular as long as the priests don't dictate military policy.
And Kurds are supporteres of israel and vice-versa
Many Turks claim Kurds are Turks, and that is why they suppress any attempts at self-determination. The Armenians were more clearly distinct and different from Turks.
See # 25; Wikipedia (FWIW) seems to link them to Iranians linguistically instead.
Anyway. but the Kurds were separate from various Irani empires from the time of the Seljuk migrations. They remained Sunni as they were not part of the Safavid Empire (the 1700s Iranian empire which forceably converted Iranians to Shia'ism -- though to note that the Safavids family was Persianized Turkic) and they were part of the Ottoman orbit especially in the early 1900s. This was not a problem until the "awakening of nations" in the late 1800s, early 1900s when "nations" felt that they needed ethnically "pure" lands for themselves - this was also the root cause of WWI.
Interesting history; I was just relaying the Turks’ spin on it (as justification for keeping the lands inhabited by Kurds).
prior to this the Ottomans ruled as both custodians of Islam (as Caliphs) and also generally "the rulers" -- they were hardly threatened until the rise of Russia in teh 1700s and the various "national awakenings" triggered by the French revolution that first hit the Greeks and then the Bulgarians, Romanians etc. before hitting the Arabs at the turn of the 1800 to 1900 century
Kurds are genetically and linguistically distinct from the "average" Turk.
Linguistically its easy - the Kurds are Indo-European speakers of Kurdish which is an Iranian language (of the iranian sub-branch of the Indo-Irani branch of the Indo-European language famiily
as you can see they are very closely related to Persian (the most popular Iranian language) - close but not quite mutually intelligible
Genetically the Kurds are Iranian fully. The "Turks" are hardly Turkic -- may be 3 to 5% of their genes as a whole "nation" can be tied to central Asia and that % drops drastically the further west you go of Ankara. "Turks" are genetically Indo-European mainly of Phrygian, Hittite, Galatian, Greek, Armenian, Iranian (including Kurdish) blood with admixture of Semitic and Georgian and "anatolian" (Hurrian?) genes.
The original Turks look slike Kazakhis or Mongolians. But by the 10th century they had already moved to Central Asia which was purely Iranian from 1700 BC (you can still see the ones who didn't mix among the Tajiks who are descendents of the Sogdians) or earlier and they mixed. So the "Turks" ended up looking like the present day Uzbeks - Most Turks are actually Greek, Armenians, Arab, and others who "went Turk" :)
Agree, but don’t support either of the 2 choices.
Yes, there were 400,000 Kurdish Jews that were moved to Israel from the Region. This was a tripwire with the Iraq Kurd Referendum. Turkey went crazy’er due to that. Went on a rant about Mountain Jews.
The divide in the Middle East now is interesting, who would have ever thought that Saudi Arabia and Israel would be cooperating?
And long ago, they admitted the involvement and have worked honorably with Armenians. The Kurds have received some of the same treatment the Armenians received.
A number of people here believe that the Kurds are in fact descendants of the Medes. Again, I not sure it is quite that simple. I think like most countries the mixture of races is pretty large. With the advent of DNA testing it is easier to appreciate that. Amazing technology, hope it is not mis-applied.
Many Kurds claim to be sons of Jonah. Not sure how I feel about that.
You seem very informed on the history of the Region.
What is your view on the history of the Alawites in Damascus?
The “Turks” are a made-up nation (well most “nations” are) with the conquered associating with the conquerors.
The Sauds and Israel have been cooperating since the 90s.
Correct about the admixture. Kurds are descendents of the Medes but alsohave Persian (Medes and Persians are both Iranis), other Iranians and Armenian, Greek, Turkic, Arab, Assyrian, Aramaic, etc. blood
They aren't very semitic though
That was more clear with the Ottomans (ruling the Arabs), but today it is more homogenous (and smaller). There are minority groups, but they are drops in the bucket.
Very few came and the result is the turks of today are mostly not "Turkic" in genes.
They only came to Damascus during the French protectorate
The reason they never came to DAmascus before that is, as heretics, they would have been killed on sight by the Ottomans - they were treated far, far worse than Shias and far far far,far worse than Christians
The Alawits since the 1920s have educated themselves (they were mostly illiterate except for the few elite who kept and keep the secrets of what they actually worship), and took the opportunity to get to power -- the reason is that if they are in power they would not be persecuted by the Sunnis.
Ever since Hafez Assad came to power, the Alawites have put on the outer garb of Moslems and called themselves Shia -- remember that the Shia are a bunch of different sects with the main theme being that they have "interpretors" of the Quran -- while Sunnis are sola scriptura (no insult to Protestants intended). So teh Alawites could pretend to be Muslims and ease the Sunni and Shia disdain for being ruled over by non-Muslims.
“There are some Muslims. There are many atheists among PKK. There are some Christians. There are some Lefties. I’ve seen some of them flash Che’ banners, I hate it.”
So in other word they’re pretty much like every other group of fools who fell for the communist bilge swallow throughout history.
I’ll sit this one out, too. There’s no vital American national interest here. Let them sort it out.
Then we can kick Turkey out of NATO and be done with it.
L
In my experience Turks physically look very different from Iranians; they are from a different part of Asia altogether.
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